As I write this, I wonder what you might find worthwhile or entertaining, where you are, and how I might offer you a puzzle, a thought, a question, you find worth pursuing. It’s the writer’s dilemma. I remember it stated best in an interview in which Hunter S Thompson was asked, Would you rather research or write? He answered simply,
“Researching is much easier, because no one can help you write.”
That’s really the problem, isn’t it?
No matter how we look it. No matter how much we read and research it. At the end, at the start, it’s me alone with my thoughts and hopefully, something to say. Anyone can watch and critique. Some can offer direction or guidance, but no one can be my voice. No one can do my writing.
I come to this blog with a writer’s ego and a writer’s self-doubt. The ego is what makes me brave enough to put the words where folks can read them. The self-doubt is what makes me curious and more centered in the folks who read. The ego makes me reach for expression. The self-doubt makes me listen for sense and meaning.
I hate writing. I love having written. — Hugh Prather, Jr.
Quote after quote tells the story of writers who know that they have to go it alone. Every blogger worth his or her blogging salt knows the same thing.
Yet we do it. Why do we do it? We have a secret.
It’s more than the momentary thrill of a finished writing piece. We might have started out thinking it was about the writing, but that’s only part, and that’s where it changes. I’m from publishing so I know of what I speak.
When I write for print, once it’s published, the event is over.
When I blog, once it’s published, it’s often the beginning. A conversation can start. It can last for hours or pick up again days later. The thoughts I wrote get answered. They get reflected, reformed, and reignited. Sometimes they get interpreted in ways I never expected and I find myself amazed. I find myself totally engaged in a discussion that takes the idea to places beyond, filling in nuances and broadening the spectrum. The folks who “comment” add insights, draw conclusions, analyze and synthesize the thinking. The speak in the realm of logic and emotion with equal fluency and flexibility.
I come for the company – Tony D. Clark.
Every day I return to my blog and I write. Often I’m still there until the wee hours of the next morning. No one can help me write. . . . but you can take the thought wider and deeper with the authenticity of your experience. That’s the Blogger’s Secret.
Liz Strauss writes and blogs at Successful-Blog, where all of her readers are in on the secret.
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